When Princess Diana died, I was abroad, as I was on Friday evening when Kensington Palace made the shocking announcement that the Princess of Wales had been treated for cancer. While the global media has been as fascinated by Kate’s illness as the British press, when the news broke there was no one in my hotel who wasn’t full of worry and compassion. In a world where Caribbean countries seem over-eager to renounce the crown, a world where Australia appears desperate to become a republic, Friday night certainly reminded me that globally our royal family still commands an extraordinary amount of fondness and respect.
As Anthony Holden wrote at the time: “Diana’s death shook the royal family, shook the country, and brought us all together in the process, in grief. In a decade of convening, of togetherness, of coming together in fields, in clubs, in stadia, in galleries, in magazines, books and films, here we all were, coming together in sorrow.”
